If Blue Goes
by Shewritesstuff
Summary: "If Jaime lived inside of him like Iris West-Allen claimed, then Bart knew what he wanted to do – turn himself inside out just to see that smile again. " - A three part Bluepulse fic.
1. One

**A/N: **This was painful to write and I'm finally ready to share. There will be two more parts.

_**1.**_

"I'll be back grandma! _Back in a flash_." Iris West-Allen was used to dealing with the men in her life zooming past her before she was able to even react. But this was one of those times she was determined not to be left standing there with the wind flapping her red locks angrily against her face. After years of being successfully married to a man who moved like lightening Iris managed to learn a trick or two when it came to dealing with such inconveniences. For example, there was one sure way of getting to the door before a speedster – be there already waiting for them _before_ they got the idea to flee from the conversation.

There was a soft thud, as predicted, when Bart Allen walked straight into her. _An immovable force_, her stance warned the young boy, _Don't even try. _

Iris sighed, the stern look on her face relaxed as she grabbed her grandson gently by the shoulders, pulling his small frame into her chest to stop him from falling back or turning to escape.

Mostly she just wanted to hold him.

Close.

The men in her life always thought they could outrun their problems, but she knew them well enough to know it wasn't always possible.

Bart looked up at her with a small embarrassed smile on his face. It took Iris everything she had not to burst into tears right there.

He wasn't ready to talk to her.

Pain, she could see it clearly in the depths of those two green eyes that looked so much like her own. He was still trying to escape it, fast feet to carry him away from the ugly truths in life.

Shield his agony from the world with what he mistook for an unbreakable smile.

He wasn't ready to share but he had to at least_ try_.

"Where would you be going at this time Bart?" Hands on her hips, eyebrows furled with concern Iris had to do something. Her best bet was that Bart would somehow respond to her as the stern voiced matriarch.

"Just a quick stroll around the city. Stretch my legs, molecules. Vibrating shakes off the mode in a microsec." His face beamed but as he blinked she could see the wetness on his eyelashes. "It's late but, I have been out later. Superhero remember. Baddies in darkened alleyways don't scare me."

Iris swallowed hard. He wasn't _super _anything right now. Just a small boy she had to look after and help through unbelievable tragedy.

"Bart..." It was all she could manage before her voice began to quiver with uncertainty. Bart Allen's large grin remained unfazed. Like it was violently attached to his pale face with a staple gun.

That had to hurt and therefore by default it hurt her.

"Bart..."

"I know." His interruption caused her nod grimly. _A child of just thirteen should not know about heartache and loss_. _He should not have to be facing this_. Why couldn't she have protected him from all this?

Iris wanted to scream at him to tell her how she could help. She wanted violently shake him until his tears would fall without hesitation and she could wipe them away. _Mourn and be done with it, mourn and let me be your grandmother._ But Bart's face remained still, other than well-rehearsed deliberate smiles for the benefit of all to see there wasn't much else. He was like a doll on in a toystore.

It was not okay how okay he was trying to be.

"A whirl around the world won't change anything but..." Bart paused for a moment and Iris selfishly prayed it was a sign his mask would drop and tears would begin to fall.

If he mourned like the rest of us, it would give her something tangible to deal with. It was for her as much as it was for him. Iris tried not to feel ashamed about it, but somehow she couldn't help but feel exactly that. Shame.

_I am failing him. Every day this goes on, I am failing him._

"Jaime Reyes was a good kid." Words that felt infinitesimal compared to the truth were all she could muster to comfort him. But she didn't need to remind her grandson how special his best friend was. Jaime Reyes was more than just a good kid. He was an incredible human being who made the ultimate sacrifice so the others like her Barry, Wally and Bart didn't have to.

_Sacrifices her boys would have happily made if needed be_, the thought caused chills to run down her spine.

Iris West-Allen was no heroine. She was a wife, aunt and blessed to be a grandmother. She hated herself for such thoughts but if it meant she could be holding Bart in her arms every day – she would be thanking God for sending the world brave boys like Jaime Reyes and continue to pray her boys would never have to be as brave as that.

"He was...a hero. I know you were close, sweety."

_You don't know half of it,_ the look in his eyes told her. She could never know.

_Golden hair, easy smiles, warm kisses, flashes of yellow and red. _

Iris shuddered.

She didn't need to know to feel his pain. More than that he didn't want her to. Not ever.

"God. Bart. I'm just so worried about you. We are all worried about you." Iris whispered, she was on her knees now, holding his face in her hands and crying. "Baby, what can I do? Please. I need to know what can I do?"

She once more felt like a failure when Bart hugged her.

"It's okay grandma. Blue's a hero, he crashed the mode. He saved everyone. And I did what I had to do." He whispered in her ear and rubbed small circles on her back. She was surprised by how strong his small hands seemed to be and it made her tear up even more.

How could he be comforting her when she should be comforting him.

She gently pulled herself free and looked him in the eyes. "No one expects you to go for a walk and just get over all that has happened. You're just so young." Iris tried to control her sobs by taking deep breaths. "Too young to have to watch your friend-"

"Friends."

Iris stopped breathing at Bart's statement.

"Friends." He repeated in a grim hardened voice she was surprised to hear escape such youthful lips.

"I have watched many friends die grandma. Many. Jaime wasn't one of them. You might not know, maybe because to you I'm just a baby your baby will one day have. But Jaime wasn't my friend. He never was just a friend. And what we have – had – could have had... was crash." His voice was breaking.

"But..."

It was then that Iris finally knew. What that look in her grandson's green eyes meant. Why it terrified her so.

_Green eyes like my own. _

"Oh God..Bart..Oh God..."

Bart looked away and for the briefest moment they just stood. Unable to react. Being consumed by their worst nightmare.

Then Iris remembered. Bart was living _his_.

"Gonna go now. Need some air you know. Be back in a flash." And before she could react, he was gone.

Leaving her with tears in eyes, a shaking hand over her mouth and an awful realisation in the pit of her stomach; no amount of motherly love would fix Bart Allen.

_I've failed._


	2. Two

_**2.**_

If Jaime lived inside of him like Iris West-Allen claimed, then Bart knew what he wanted to do – turn himself inside out just to see that smile again.

If Jaime Reyes's spirit was all around them, in the air and water, protecting every person he ever touched; in accordance with Mescalero Apache beliefs passed on through the ages all the way to Tye Longshadow who in turn passed on this wisdom to Bart; then Bart knew what he wanted – to undo every last atom that made up his small body and disperse into the atmosphere. So that the contents of his body may somehow find Jaime.

If Jaime was in Heaven crashing at what Bart could only understand as some sort of all you can eat buffet past a joint called St. Peter's Gates, then that's where Bart wanted to be – attempting to throw to the back of his throat heaven's version of Chicken Whizees. Getting crumbs all over Jaime's lap. Staring up into those delicious root beer brown eyes. That's where he _wanted_ to be, lying back and feeling Jaime's long fingers though his hair.

But apparently the ability to travel over water and through solid matter wasn't how you got there. Bart thought himself a good person but no matter how good he was St. Peter's gates would not open for the living.

There was always the possibility that Wally West's cynicism proved to be right and Bart Allen didn't have to travel all that far to find Jaime Reyes, because he was where they left him yesterday. Buried as per Catholic tradition in a small plot behind Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, just a bus ride away from Mrs. Reyes' home in El Paso. No heaven. No spirits. Just six feet under the hard ground, pumped full of embalming fluid for Bart to pretend to be kissing goodbye a living, smiling Jaime for the last time ever. These were chemicals that would only postpone the inevitable decay of soft skin that used to feel like sunshine to him. Jaime Reyes could be found there, in his grave, wearing a suit that made him look awkwardly neat – a suit that would someday soon be covered in bugs and dirt and cling instead to a bag of dried skin and bones.

Bart Allen _knew_ where he could find a person called Jaime Reyes so unlike the Blue he fell in love with. An empty shell. A fake. A terrifyingly cold sack of meat they tampered with, airbrushed and put on display for a day or two before boxing the hideously distorted mock-up and throwing it in a pit for the earth carrying its millions of starved insects to swallow and feast on.

Bart knew where to find that Jaime.

But where was his living breathing loving Jaime?

_"If Blue goes...I go." _When did he make that promise...days, weeks, years ago?

Jaime was gone, or at least not here.

Bart wasn't sure where but he knew how.

Every part of Jaime just stopped. The will to fight the scarab. The words of doom Bart brought with him from the future were stronger than their embraces.

And everyone expected Bart to be able to live with that?

_Jaime is a hero,_ they repeated from morn to eve. As if an act of heroism was something grand. Something that should mean more to Bart than the small things Jaime did, like shake his head and curse in Spanish whenever Bart raided his fridge. Forgive him and then go shopping to make sure there were always more for Bart the next time. Things like translate for him when the pop culture references and slang got too much. Drag him by the arm out of the Rec Room whenever the speedster had outstayed his welcome and Garfield Logan's snarl became more animal than human.

Things like let Bart love him from a distance without complaint.

_Heroism. _It should have meant more. They crashed the mode. The world was safe. Billions would live. Billions but not Jaime.

Bart couldn't bear to be one of them. They might owe their lives to Jaime Reyes, but Bart's life began and ended with him. There was a difference Bart just could not explain to the rest of the team.

They missed Jaime, yet missing Jaime was not the problem.

It wasn't the seemingly unbearable sorrow that made it so hard. No, Bart was smart enough to know people lost loved ones everyday and still managed to find a way to live on. It was just that he was done.

It was over for him.

He did all that he had set out to do. Strange thing to say at his age, but Bart Allen had lived more than anyone else on this planet. He accomplished greatest feat he set out to do, learnt all about his family legacy, where he came from, who he was and who the world needed him to be. He lost himself, found himself and became so much more. He had been through every form of torment and fought, cried and lived. More importantly, he had loved. Felt loved. A love so perfect he'd couldn't dream of asking for more.

He had done it all.

And there was never a plan for what would come after.

That is what Bart Allen could not deal with, being shrapnel. A relic from a war won and a remnant of a world that would never be. There was no existence outside of that for him.

And if there was a chance of another life, it began and ended with Jaime Reyes.

Maybe it waited for him in one of those many places Jaime could possibly be.


	3. Three

**A/N: **Final part. Sighs...sorry about it being what it is.

_**3.**_

Whether it was running away from danger or running at it with fierce eyes, very few could move like Bart Allen. Right now he was moving.

Moving aimlessly and the fixtures on this planet blended, becoming nothing other than pointless blurs.

Move.

Forward. Forward. Forward. _Forward._

Until forward no longer exists and Bart no longer knew where it was, where it would end and what it all meant.

"_It will hurt and then you will move on."_

But Jaime wasn't someone he could move on from. There was nothing to move towards. This was a truth Bart could not explain to others, or run from and he wondered if maybe this was the kind of epiphany Jaime had when he saved them all.

He just wished Jaime had believed in him more. Believed Bart could have saved him. Believed in _him_.

But Jaime stopped believing, he stopped fighting to find another way.

That angry thought had been trying creep up on Bart. But Bart was running. Nothing could touch the Allen men when they ran. Not fear, not anger, and definitely not pain.

Bart ran faster than he had ever run before. He was a blur not quite here and not quite there. But it wasn't fast enough, not good enough. He could feel himself wanting to go faster, faster, faster and faster – until he was no longer sure if he was going or just had gone.

And then he'd stop.

He'd be here and there. Everywhere.

Because there was no part of him that would ever stop wanting to be with Jaime no matter where Jaime was. Everywhere or nowhere at all. It did not matter. Bart was sure he was going to see him again. He would see him again because he was going to get there, wherever there was, the same way Jaime did.

_Just need to stop first._

Stop running. Slow down to a halt. Decelerate and stop.

Then go beyond standing still. Bart Allen was going to become definition of absolute stillness. _Stop._ The hammering inside his chest. _Stop. _Every cell that once ignited with a pure energy that vibrated throughout his entire form. _Stop. _Everything that ever was or ever would be Bart Allen.

_Stop._

And with a thud his small body hit the floor.

His brain still hummed for a moment when everything else had long given up. A flicker of images of places he may or may not have been. Colours. Brown, red, yellow and blue. In the end, so many shades of blue.

_And for a moment green eyes._

Bart saw things that may or may not have been. It felt like smiles but might have tasted like tears.

He couldn't be sure, yet somehow Bart didn't care to find out.

If all he had been through taught him anything it was that Bart Allen was the 'choose your own ending' sort of guy. Destiny, time, people. Bart never let how things were stop him from seeing things as they should be. As he wanted them to.

_Tasted like tears..._

"BART! BART! Bart? Baby...no. No. No. Baby? Please, no."

Needed them to be.

"If Blue ...what? Ay, this guy! He _actually _means everything he ever says! It's loco, right? I love the freak. He's nuts!

..._But felt like smiles_

"What! I missed you is all. And fyi, it's not crazy. It's in the name – Impulse"

Felt like smiles.

Bart Allen chose well.


End file.
